i forgot about my box full of japanese candy. the ants seemingly found it days ago and colonized it. i noticed the box in my cabinet last night as i was unpacking. the outside writhed and rippled with small black insects. i followed the trail back to the source inside the built-in china cabinet, then pulled the offending box from the shelf, doused it in ant spray, and disposed of it.
i was fuming now. i spent my first two days in the new house successfully killing ants, and i thought that i had won the battle. not as such. the ants were finding new ways into my house and my stuff. but this was a remarkable development — they had finally found a reason to enter my room, not six feet from where i lay my head in sleep. i didn't want to spray in my bedroom, so i tried this new gel i found at the safeway. it comes in a syringe and you are supposed to spread it all around the point of entry, plugging up the holes if you can. some of ants will asphyxiate immediately, but the rest will carry the goo back to their hive where it will be distributed like so much jonestown punch. i can hang with that.
i squirted the clear gel along the back corners of the cabinet, giving generous treatment to the four small ant-portals i discovered. i watched five or six of them go right for it, digging in with gusto. one choked on the goo, but the others took what they could carry and retreated, leaving a scent trail behind them as they disappeared. as the ants continued their work, i watched a few more closely as they died.
a poisoned ant will first run away from the gel, then begin wiping its head furiously as if trying to bat something out of its hair. soon, panic sets in and the ant begins running in circles. the legs start to fail as the ant becomes more disoriented and the circles turn into erratic scribbles. finally, the ant collapses and twitches the life out of itself. the process is by no means instantaneous, but rather takes close to five minutes per ant. watching the central systems of any animal shut down so slowly and painfully makes me feel the slightest bit remorseful, but then i remember that these ants are invading my space. i have a signed lease, they do not, so die they must. i tease myself thinking that if i could find a method of removing the ants without killing them, i would employ it. but that's hogwash.
within an hour, the ants in my cabinet number over one hundred. they are really trucking this stuff away now. close to one third of the gel is gone, carried behind the painted hardwood. i am beginning to wonder if these ants are simply genetically immune or if this newfangled goo actually works. i decide to rely upon my patience. i also notice a spider up at the top of the cabinet. her web is gradually filling with small black dots. she's killing ants! and eating them! thank you miss spider. part of me thinks that if the spider could thank me in return, she would. i go to sleep after looking at the ants once more, and they are starting to diminish in number. i am optomistic.
i wake the next morning to a sickening sea of tiny black corpses. the ants like motionless and serene, heads and legs facing the sky. how many are there? five hundred? a thousand? it's a mass murder committed by my hand, so i sweep them all into a mass grave.
i am the pol pot of ants.
Posted by snackfight at September 11, 2003 11:54 AM